Thursday, March 1, 2007

DT Quotes Show File-Sharing Rift on Campus

The students quoted in this Daily Trojan article show an interesting rift in sentiment on the USC campus in regard to file-sharing and the RIAA's lawsuits:

"It's a rippling effect. [The RIAA] starts doing this, and we find sneakier ways to download illegally," he said. "Until they get the picture that we're not going to stop until they make it much easier to get music at a reasonable price, we're not going to stop." - an anonymous freshman interactive entertainment major

versus...

"It seems like they're trying to make some sort of compromise," he said. "You've seen the lawsuits where some grandma is sued and pays thousands of dollars, so if they're willing to settle out of court - sort of like a, 'You help us, we'll help you' - that's a good thing." - Brandon Lang, freshman business major

Notice that the budding cultural creator is opposed to the RIAA's tactics and expresses dissatisfaction with the music industry, while the budding business mogul views the RIAA's actions as defensible--even beneficial.

I'd like to think that the rift between the two viewpoints is mostly an information rift--that with more knowledge, Lang would ultimately come to see how the RIAA's tactics are dangerous to civil liberties and dangerous to our future as consumers and technloogists. But what would be the best way to go about having that dialogue?

5 comments:

This is one of the biggest challenges FC.USC has to face. USC attracts a lot of techno-nerds and artists through the film, music, and engineering programs while simultaneously attracting a lot of business-minded folks through the success of Marshall. I try not to generalize, but you can imagine where you would find those mroe prone to the ideals set forth by the FC movement would find themselves.

So what we need to be able to do is talk to business minded people about how this stuff is BAD for business. take a look at entrepreneur Mark Cuban, arguably one of the most successful business men of our generation, who likes nothing more than to piss on conventional business wisdom in favor of new media. It's a struggle but we need to work on creating a vibrant dialogue between the different people on this campus as to better prepare them and ourselves for the changing state of content ownership.

but seriously, what perfect timing that the RIAA would hit USC specifically after our discussion last week

as Cory said, the university is not obligated by law to reveal any information to the RIAA - it will be interesting to see how the administration responds

Digital Music News, one of the most widely read music tech blogs among industry executives, used a USC sweatshirt as the photo for their article on this situation - quite literally, I think all eyes may be on the Trojans on this one . . .

I think Cameron and Richard bring up some amazing points on this disconnect between the arts and business students - maybe some type of open panel between students and professors from the various schools is in order??